Allen Klein

The notorious and pugnacious manager of artists including The Rolling Stones and Sam Cooke, Allen Klein took control of The Beatles' business affairs in 1969, following the death of Brian Epstein.

Born in America on 18 December 1931, Klein was the son of Jewish immigrants from Budapest. As a teenager he excelled at mental arithmetic. After graduating from Upsala College, New Jersey in 1956, he began auditing for record companies and bookkeeping for a number of showbusiness names.

In 1957 he began a business partnership with his wife Betty. Two years later he met singer Bobby Darin at a wedding, and offered to make him $100,000. Darin asked what he needed to do, and Klein reportedly said: "Nothing. Just let me go over your accounts."

Klein pursued Darin's record company for money he regarded as owed to the singer. Darin gave Klein free rein to audit his accounts, and duly received the cheque Klein had promised.

The hostile approach became Klein's trademark. He picked up further celebrity clients, and record labels began to fear his methods.

In 1963 Klein became Sam Cooke's business manager, negotiating an unprecedented agreement between the star and the music industry: Cooke ended up with the rights to all his future recordings, gate receipts for concert, 10% of all record sales and back royalties.

The deal had a huge effect on the music industry, though it's worth remembering that he was far from the only management svengali around at the time. Andrew Loog Oldham, for example, secured ownership of all The Rolling Stones' master tapes, which he then leased to Decca; a method he picked up from Phil Spector.

When Oldham fell victim to drugs in 1965, Klein took over management of the Stones' affairs. Jagger, initially impressed by Klein's business skills, recommended him to Paul McCartney, who was looking for someone to take over The Beatles' business matters. Klein met John Lennon on the set of the Stones' Rock And Roll Circus, but they didn't discuss business and little came of the meeting.

The Rolling Stones soon began to doubt the trustworthiness of Klein. They decided to fire him in the late 1960s, and in 1970 set up their own business. However, a legal settlement left Klein the rights to most of their songs recorded before 1971.

With The Beatles

Shortly after the recording of Rock And Roll Circus, Allen Klein read a comment by John Lennon that financial problems at Apple Corps would leave them "broke in six months".

The Beatles had been without a manager since Epstein died in August 1967. Although NEMS, headed by Brian's brother Clive, had looked after the day-to-day running, and Paul McCartney was mostly steering the band's artistic direction, there was little grasp of the bigger picture. There were, crucially, few people trusted to sort out the practicalities of business as Epstein had done.

By 1969 it was clear that Apple's finances needed to be addressed urgently. McCartney favoured his father-in-law Lee Eastman, but the others - led by Lennon, who on 28 January had appointed Klein his personal advisor on the spot after a meeting at the Dorchester Hotel in London - objected. They felt that Eastman would put McCartney's interests ahead of the rest of the group.

Klein offered to take a commission only on The Beatles' increased business, a change in his normal method of operating. If Apple continued losing money, he said, he would take nothing.

With Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr united, Paul McCartney agreed to pose for photographs with Klein as a sign of unity. However, although he pretended to sign a new contract, he never put his signature to it. The subsequent fall-out over the management of the group was one of the key factors in their break-up.

Allen Klein swiftly renegotiated their EMI contract, obtaining them the highest royalties ever paid to an artist at the time. EMI, in return, were allowed to release Beatles compilations, which Brian Epstein had always resisted.

The single Something/Come Together was released on 31 October 1969. Until then, The Beatles had never lifted a single from one of their albums; they had either been stand-alone, or released on the same day as their parent album. The release illustrated the band's shifting attitudes towards money-making and artistry.

Klein's action gave The Beatles a hit and some much-needed income. He also helped resurrect the abandoned Get Back project, which became Let It Be. Klein brought Phil Spector to England to work on it, a move which led to years of resentment from Paul McCartney.

Apple Corps was overhauled, and Klein drastically cut expenditure, cancelled charge accounts for many staff and friends of the band. Although in many ways necessary, Klein's business ethos was in stark contrast to the anything-goes attitude with which Apple was set up. He alienated many of those who had previously been part of the band's circle, and fired Epstein's long-standing assistant Alistair Taylor.

He also closed the loss-making experimental and spoken word imprint Zapple, which only released two albums: Lennon and Yoko Ono's Unfinished Music No 2: Life With The Lions; and Harrison's Electronic Sound, which carried the liner note, "There are a lot of people around, making a lot of noise; here's some more."

Although McCartney deeply distrusted Klein, he admitted to him, "If you are screwing us, I don't see how." McCartney went on to sue the other Beatles in order to dissolve The Beatles' business partnership.

The solo years

After The Beatles split up, Allen Klein assisted John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the making of the Imagine film, and helped George Harrison organise the Concert for Bangladesh. The concert's financial arrangements led to a breakdown in relations with the former Beatles.

Rather than arrange payment and agree amounts with UNICEF beforehand, Klein had waited until after the concert, which led to questions about the amounts raised and a US tax investigation. Although some funds went to UNICEF at the time, additional amounts were frozen until the 1980s. Klein was also accused of keeping money from the live album.

Klein had also agreed with Harrison that Ono shouldn't perform at the concert, which led to a breakdown in Klein's relationship with Lennon. Klein was fired, but sued Lennon, Harrison and Starr for $19 million. In 1977 he settled for $4.2 million.

My Sweet Lord

An interesting footnote concerns George Harrison's 1971 hit My Sweet Lord. Harrison was sued by Bright Tunes Music due to the song's similarity to The Chiffons' 1963 song He's So Fine. Although he said he "wasn't consciously aware of the similarity", he was later found to have "unintentionally copied" elements from the song.

Allen Klein supported Harrison during the early stages of the lawsuit, and following the judgement advised him to offer to buy Bright Tunes as part of the settlement negotiations. When The Beatles collectively sued Klein, however, ABKCO chose to outbid Harrison for Bright Tunes.

In 1978 Klein paid $587,000 for the copyright of He's So Fine. Therefore, Klein became Harrison's legal opponent; in effect, he was attempting to buy the lawsuit in order to get damages he knew Harrison would have to pay.

Judge Owen later ruled that Klein had unfairly switched sides, and that he shouldn't profit from the judgement against Harrison or from the purchase of the song rights. Klein was awarded $587,000, to be payable by Harrison to ABCKO. In return, Harrison got the rights to He's So Fine.

11 responses on “Allen Klein”

News flash! Allen Klein just died today (7/4/09) of Alzheimer’s. Hard to believe that this, Michael Jackson’s death, and Phil Spector’s life sentence for murder all happened in so short of a time. Paul’s probably laughing his butt off at the moment! Vengeance is now complete! Rock on, Beatles fans of the world!

allen klein was the anti-thesis of the soul of rock n roll. he was the counterpart to soul, he was the ruthless objectifying capitalist. He took soul and distilled out money, and drooled as a vulture saunters over carrion. He is the real life version of Fagin, or Mr. Smallweed in Dickens books. I wonder if this guy ever helped anyone less fortunate than himself. Another banal consumer that sucks everything he can out of the world. They are all too frequent anymore.

The Allen Klein saga in the Beatles (and solo years) is one of the more fascinating elements of the break-up.

No matter how you cut it, John let the Klein brigade getting George and Ringo on board, isolating Paul – Paul was then pushed into the arms of his in-laws another uncomfortable position for George and Ringo.

All of this happened during John’s heavy heroin phase – making him impossible to reason with.

The truth is that Klein played John like a cheap fiddle – and this only added to the animosity between John and Paul – thus not only helping to end an incredible partnership – but splitting up two very close friends.

The lose of the friendship between John and Paul is the really sad point. I don’t know about you, but good close loving friends are hard to find.

I’m not saying Klein broke the Beatles up – but he sure made it harder for them to get along.

One point Paul makes often is that previous to Klein everything they did was as friends – all in or nothing.

Klein turned the four of them into voting blocks, and they began to treat each other as business partners and not friends.

Hogwash. Paul’s attempt to wrest control of the Beatles away from the other three, well planned and well thought out, led to Kein being brought in. Yes, the fox got in the henhouse and John and the others greeted him, but Paul opened the door by his machinations and business acumen, which the others clearly lacked. To hear this dribble about the artistic destruction of the group being wrought by Lennon and the other two is sickening really. But I can see how the simple minded can be seduced by this specious argument.

I think you’re all being a bit tough on old Kleinster. There was one side that was released but from Kleins perspective he was trying to protect their musical inventory and keep it within the apple family. He did a great job pushing them musically and ran Apple like business (which is something the Beatles were not able to and they admitted this). The Beatles nearly lost everything to do their own mismanagement. Once they got Klein out they lost their catalog to Whacko Jacko.

John and Paul accepted stock in ATV for their share of Northern Songs in 1969 after Allen Klein failed to obtain majority ownership of Northern Songs for Lennon & McCartney.
After this transaction took place, it was ATV that sold control of Northern Songs to Michael Jackson in the 1980’s.

Klein was a thief and crook. When he got a new royalty agreement, he was contracted by John, George, & Ringo to receive 20% of the INCREASE in royalties. It was discovered when Paul sued that he was illegaly taking 20% of ALL their royalties. He also wanted royalties on Paul’s album McCartney. Paul disputed this & the albums royalties were being held by EMI until the issue was resolved. Yet Klein went and illegaly took his clained share of these royalties from APPLE. He did much more!

Alan Klein was never ‘the Beatles’ manager you should correct that. He was John’s manager and soon after he became John, George and Ringo’s manager but he was never Paul McCartney’s manager and that was the material point. Once different parts of the band were under different management the whole situation became unworkable. That was the beginning of the end, It all unraveled after that unilateral January 28 1969, decision.

In June of 1966, Allen Klein announced his intentions to manage The Beatles. What was going on around the same time was that Epstein seemed to be taking his time renewing The Beatles contract with him. One which he did not sign, which allowed them to walk freely from his management at any time they chose without legal repercussions.

Come November 1966, Epstein seems to be getting a handle on that contract renewal, but what also appears is an article stating two of The Beatles have approached Klein for management. Which two Beatles? Who knows. Epstein, Lennon, Harrison and Starr all deny the claims. McCartney? He’s in Africa and can’t be reached. (Kind of like those missing statements about Epstein’s demise from him, but comment from the other 3 when it happened.) In Christopher Sandford’s “McCartney” he makes mention that McCartney sought out Klein in 1966, which would make sense. He’s the only one not around when Klein says Beatles are abdicating Epstein’s kingdom!

Ironically, The Beatles animated series from season 2 shows McCartney as The Beetle Killer. Now I’d have to work out when that episode premiered on a Saturday morning in 1966, but since most shows in North America begin their seasons in September, I’m sure we could work out when The Beetle Killer made his first appearance, and if that is well timed with Klein’s true arrival, which was in 1966. Not 1969.

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